“Moreover, since I have lived a long time in exile, I may be legitimately claimed by all those who had to leave their native villages and provinces because of misery of persecution and to adapt themselves to new ways of life; we are millions all over the Earth, for this is a century of exile.” – Czeslaw Milosz Banquet Speech 1980
I now return to anthropocentricity, and in particular evaluate the 20th century (‘the century of exile’) and how these strange sons of the enlightenment became distasteful of the direction that Western Civilization is heading in. In particular the role of extreme oppression, totalitarian regimes, and genocide on all sides turned the minds of Solzhenitsyn and Milosz toward democracy with a critical eye – but first lets turn several centuries back to a man heavily admired by Milosz: Dante Allegeri.
Why Dante? Why do we trun centuries back to Italy to discover our current dilemma? “A patron saint of all poets in exile, who visit their towns and provinces only in remembrance, is always Dante” (Milosz, Nobel Prize Lecture 1980). Dante not only embodies poetics but he was also an exile, who, unlike Milosz, could not find solace in being in the century of exile. Dante also understood anthropocentricity as he placed pride in the bottom two layers of hell, as well as the first layer of purgatory. It is the proud who become traitors, as we see Judas, Brutus, and Cassius in the mouth of the devil himself. But alas, Milosz is not talking about the pride of just one man against his fellow man, but the pride of Man against God (or anything higher than man, for that fact).
This anthropocentricity arrives as a product of the same movement that brings modern democracy – the enlightenment. Note here a delineation between modern and ancient democracies – this will be explored later. Ironically, the enlightenment also makes way for the two greatest opponents of democracy – communism and fascism (fanatical nationalism). All three governments share a commonality, which shows best their relation to anthropocentricity and the enlightenment.
Democracy is founded on the principle that man can logically understand what is best for him and that in groups his desires are checked by others to form a common good created through the fulfillment of contrary private goods. It is man who makes laws which reflect what is best for man and only through this communal process can he create a government which is just. Here anthropocentricity appears as man’s ability to rule over himself – through law.
Communism is the belief that true utopia can be created on earth by the sharing of all, and is not far from Christian Theology. However, Communism puts heaven on earth by creating an ultimate and absolute end to history whereupon all social classes are equal and all conflicts cease. Any aim short of this absolute end is deemed political heresy, and what arrives is the belief in man’s unlimited possibility to achieve this end; a faith in mankind over God.
Fascism is the bond one has with his nation – and its absolute leader and speaker. Here we see cold efficiency of tyranny combine with ideology to create a super state whose goal is the consumption of all. Fascism’s close ties to nature and scientific realism allow it to set aside justice as something higher than man, and rather embrace the cold power of the will to achieve ends – for what else is there for man other than ends – the belief in anything higher than man himself is deemed a dream.
All three were born from a single principle of the enlightenment – that man’s reason (and his reason alone) is what gives him his identity – and furthermore – his power. This power, if properly aimed, could and SHOULD master nature to make it his slave. It is cold reason which rejects anything higher (anything beyond reasoning, i.e. epiphany, faith, belief, or revelation), it is mechanical reason which applies lifeless history to known future in an attempt to reach a paradise within man’s mind, and it is short-sighted reason which dictates the new laws.
Triplets of the Enlightenment. Of whom, 1 has risen from the ashes of two world wars and one cold war. Democracy, the child of liberalism, of the ill-fated French revolution, of Locke, has stretched the globe like the once great English Empire. Democracy, the study of Tocqueville, the asylum of Solzhenitsyn, the linguistic prison of Milosz, offers freedom of the body, and enslavement of the soul. So is the contention of these three authors, who see in the world’s most prolific political institution a problem only visible from outside its persuasive walls.
Inside its walls nothing is clearer than the supremacy of democratic Western ideas – it is enough to fuel wars and commit atrocities so long as democracy is preserved and is allowed to metastasize. Allowed to escape criticism by being in the shadows of its two brothers for an entire century, it has now emerged as a beast too big to be fed, but it eats and it is still hungry. The two biggest modern critics of this beast are already layer before you (Solzhenitsyn and Milosz), and interestingly, grew up under the oppressive weight of democracy’s twin; communism (Milosz having experienced all three triplets of the Enlightenment when Nazi Germany invaded Poland).
How could these two writers be so critical of democracy? The answer lies in exile, and in Dante Allegeri.
More on Dante’s role, and role of Exile, in the criticism of Democracy to come… but I feel enough head way has been made to warrant a rest to better distance ourselves from this material for a short while.
Veritas Ex Nihilo 